Let me
whisper to you that your kinswoman is rather a searcher after what we
call here notabilities. I heard talk of one I knew in better days--of one
who was the comrade of my youth, and the delight of Oxford--poor Pidge of
Brasenose, who got the Newdigate in my third year, and who, under his
present name of Father Bartolo, was to have been here in his capuchin
dress, with a beard and bare feet; but I presume he could not get
permission from his Superior. That is Mr. Huff, the political economist,
talking with Mr. Macduff, the Member for Glenlivat. That is the coroner
for Middlesex conversing with the great surgeon Sir Cutler Sharp, and
that pretty laughing girl talking with them is no other than the
celebrated Miss Pinnnifer, whose novel of Ralph the Resurrectionist
created such a sensation after it was abused in the Trimestrial Review.
It was a little bold certainly--I just looked at it at my club--after
hours devoted to parish duty a clergyman is sometimes allowed, you know,
desipere in loco--there are descriptions in it certainly startling--ideas
about marriage not exactly orthodox; but the poor child wrote the book
actually in the nursery, and all England was ringing with it before Dr.
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